Kindle US Marketshare at 45%, Sony at 30%

[tenkar]

Originally Posted by griffonwing

But if the mainstream players (Sony, Amazon) are releasing crippled devices for 200, and saving the bells and whistles for the 300-500 range, then I don't see the public jumping as fast as they would otherwise.

By crippled, I am referring to the limited features of the 300, which is Sony's 199 price-point device. Any device which is not user-friendly (replaceable battery, user-defined storage like SD cards, etc..) I consider to be crippled, and has an impact on whether or not I will purchase.

I'm not certain what kind of 199 device that Kindle expects to put out. I have not been following them.

What is crippled to you and to me would not be considered crippled by my parents, sister or girlfriend. I'm a techie, they are not.

A cheap, easy to use e-book reader from a known company would sell to them much more readily then any of the higher priced items in the field.

For e-books and e-book readers to come into their own you need to expand the market past the techies and the gadget geeks. These lower end, less featured items will do just that, expand the market. Price and name recognition will sell to them far faster then features they will rarely if ever use or need.

Really, does my mom need to store more then 300 books on her e-reader, or worry about changing the battery? I think not. Me on the other hand

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

I think that $300 for the Kindle is too high, considering that the typical Amazon eBook is only discounted a couple of bucks. But if the Kindle came with a $300 Amazon eBook store credit, I think most people would find it much more reasonable.

They couldn't go to that extreme, as it would take a long time for them to make any money off most people.

That's 30 ebooks at $10 an e-book--more when you consider many books are less than that.

If they give that much credit, the average person who only reads a handful of books a year may opt for one since it's basically free in the long run and it could be years before amazon sees any profit from them.

Now if you said $50-100 in credit, that would be a more feasible promotion.

[griffonwing]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

They couldn't go to that extreme, as it would take a long time for them to make any money off most people.

That's 30 ebooks at $10 an e-book--more when you consider many books are less than that.

If they give that much credit, the average person who only reads a handful of books a year may opt for one since it's basically free in the long run and it could be years before amazon sees any profit from them.

Now if you said $50-100 in credit, that would be a more feasible promotion.

Try this Point of View.

You spend 300-350 for the Kindle, and you get 30 free books valued at 9.99 each or less. Or even, 300 in free books. You still have paid for the Kindle, and Amazon, as it is, is making a killing with their books. Maybe not with the best-sellers or what-not, but with a 10-35% cut from uploaded materials, they can easily afford to offset the deal of giving away 300 in books.

Or this. Kindle cost 350, or, if you spend 450 now, you get 300 bucks in free books (a savings of 150). You have to purchase the books within a year, maybe 2) of Kindle purchase.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by RWood

In a recent study on e-book readers by the CleantechGroup they estimated that the total US market for e-book readers was slightly more than 1,000,000 units, increasing to 14.4 million in 2012. Of that, 45% were Kindles, 30% Sonys, and the remaining 25% divided among the remaining brands.

...

Thanks for posting this. It seems the topic has drifted a wee bit. But here's my two cents about the press release:

I'd like to see the actual report, but $2195 per year is a little steep!

As it is, I'm very skeptical about the carbon-offset claims, coming as they do from an organization that is in no way unbiased in the conclusions they want to put forth to their partners and investors. I wish it were true, but I think it's far from clear that even a massive shift away from printed books to using electronic reading devices would have significant, or any, environmental benefits. At least I doubt it's been studied in any rigorous way. I think this is largely self-promotion.

The 50% Amazon, 35% Sony breakdown and total sales figures seem as good a guess as any but it's not a figure I have much confidence in. Things are very dynamic lately, and hopefully will remain that way for the benefit of us consumers. And in making their case for ebook readers, they really should look at projected sales worldwide rather than just the US.

(I now return you to the Sony v. Kindle thread this has become...)

I have a K2, but am interested in getting a 300 as a second reader that I can play with: smaller, real PDF/ePub support, works with ADE, can borrow from libraries etc. I have some questions about it, but I'll take them over to the Sony forum.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

I'm also surprised at their guess that Amazon and Sony have 45% and 30% of the U.S. market, respectively.

Why does it surprise you? It seems pretty reasonable to me. If anyone had asked me to make a wild guess about what proportion of the eBook reader market Amazon had in the US, I would have said "about half".

[TadW]

Originally Posted by griffonwing

By crippled, I am referring to the limited features of the 300, which is Sony's 199 price-point device. Any device which is not user-friendly (replaceable battery, user-defined storage like SD cards, etc..) I consider to be crippled, and has an impact on whether or not I will purchase.

Using your definition of crippled, the Apple iPod is a crippled device as well. Yet, it's the world's most successful MP3 player. So I suppose for the average John Doe, your definition doesn't apply.

[griffonwing]

Originally Posted by TadW

Using your definition of crippled, the Apple iPod is a crippled device as well. Yet, it's the world's most successful MP3 player. So I suppose for the average John Doe, your definition doesn't apply.

Wrong. At least for myself.

An iPod can be purchased with a differing amount of ram. 1GB, 4, 8, 30, 60GB, etc.. Not just iPod, but most players. The smallest amount of memory I recall seeing lately was 512MB. I, myself, have an 8GB Creative Zen.

However, of all of the ebook reader devices, they mostall have a similar amount of internal storage. I do not recall seeing any with more than 1GB of internal memory. And this one, if memory serves, also played MP3 for audio books or songs.

Because of this, the ability to play music, audio books, as well as read, an SD card slot is essential. I fall into this category.

Others may not, and that is fine.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by griffonwing

However, of all of the ebook reader devices, they mostall have a similar amount of internal storage. I do not recall seeing any with more than 1GB of internal memory. And this one, if memory serves, also played MP3 for audio books or songs.

The Kindle has 2GB, but no memory card slot. Most of the modern devices seem to have standardised on 1GB storage and either an SD or a microSD card slot.

[PennyPie]

I'm a believer in the Gillette school of "Give 'em the razor and sell 'em the blade."

This is a great quote!!! That's what printer companies are doing (sort of) Selling printers at a very low cost, the consumables (ink) being the profit center. Of course, 3rd parties have gotten in the act with generic ink refills.....but the cell phone companies follow the same idea, and they have the customer locked in with a service contract.

How can this apply to an ereader? I'd like it to, as the cost comes way down for the units.

What is crippled to you and to me would not be considered crippled by my parents, sister or girlfriend. I'm a techie, they are not.

A cheap, easy to use e-book reader from a known company would sell to them much more readily then any of the higher priced items in the field.

For e-books and e-book readers to come into their own you need to expand the market past the techies and the gadget geeks. These lower end, less featured items will do just that, expand the market. Price and name recognition will sell to them far faster then features they will rarely if ever use or need.

Absolutely! A basic model for the rest of us! (Or a starter model to get one's feet wet with, so to speak)

[Argel]

I think what is interesting – and even surprising – about those figures is that even in the US Amazon is not as dominant as many had supposed.

There is every likelihood that, as liseuses become familiar in high street shop windows and Mobipocket withers in the face of Epub (not least because of Amazon’s licensing restrictions), Kindle/Mobipocket will become a distinctly minority format even in Amazon’s home market.
It is clearly never going to be the dominant force outside the US because everyone else has a head start and there is widespread suspicion verging on hostility to Amazon among publishers.

If I were Jeff Bezos I would be wondering just how to adapt my tactics now that it seems I might fail to dominate my home market, my format is losing adherents and, crucially, newspaper/magazine publishers are turning to other providers.

[TadW]

Originally Posted by griffonwing

Wrong. At least for myself.

An iPod can be purchased with a differing amount of ram. 1GB, 4, 8, 30, 60GB, etc.. Not just iPod, but most players. The smallest amount of memory I recall seeing lately was 512MB. I, myself, have an 8GB Creative Zen.

However, of all of the ebook reader devices, they mostall have a similar amount of internal storage. I do not recall seeing any with more than 1GB of internal memory.

Uhm, this is *not* what you said. Quote griffonwing (emphasis mine):

Any device which is not user-friendly (replaceable battery, user-defined storage like SD cards, etc..) I consider to be crippled.

And like Harry said, the Kindle 2 has 2GB of flash memory, the DX has even 4GB (albeit not all is usable).

[Alexander Turcic]

Originally Posted by Argel

I think what is interesting – and even surprising – about those figures is that even in the US Amazon is not as dominant as many had supposed.

I fully agree. Merely based on personal instincts I would have said at least 70:30 in favor of Amazon.

[HarryT]

Remember that Sony were selling the Reader in the US for a long time before the Kindle was released, so they had a big "head start". Amazon may be significantly out-selling Sony now, but that still leaves a lot of Sonys out there before the Kindle was available! Plus there's the fact that the Sony is sold in high-street stores, whereas the Kindle is only available on-line.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by griffonwing

But if the mainstream players (Sony, Amazon) are releasing crippled devices for 200, and saving the bells and whistles for the 300-500 range, then I don't see the public jumping as fast as they would otherwise.

By crippled, I am referring to the limited features of the 300, which is Sony's 199 price-point device. Any device which is not user-friendly (replaceable battery, user-defined storage like SD cards, etc..) I consider to be crippled, and has an impact on whether or not I will purchase.

I'm not certain what kind of 199 device that Kindle expects to put out. I have not been following them.

The 300 is not crippled. It's deliberately limited, but it's not crippled. It has enough user-accessible storage to more than cover what the average person will read in a couple of years - possibly even the life of the device.

All the evidence indicates that the 300 will be better than the 500 for actually reading books, and that's its primary function. It won't be perfect - but it will be a decent reading device.

For most people, the term "user friendliness" is more about simplicity of use than ease of maintenance. Replacing the battery isn't part of normal use so they won't worry about it. Many people only worry about expandable storage if they feel the device doesn't have enough internal storage.

For the average person, it should be perfectly usable the same way most mp3 players are - plug it into your computer, load it up, and away you go.

Yes it's got fewer features than the Astak Pocket Pro, but it has enough important features that it will be a perfectly viable reading device at a reasonable price point with retail presence. I also wouldn't be surprised to see it online at $170-180 within the next 3-6 months at the outside.

It's going to work, meet many people's needs and probably sell very well.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

The 300 is not crippled. It's deliberately limited, but it's not crippled. It has enough user-accessible storage to more than cover what the average person will read in a couple of years - possibly even the life of the device.

I totally agree with you. I've never used a memory card in any of my reading devices - the internal storage is always (for me) entirely adequate. Eg, I have 300 books on my CyBook Gen3, and am using 40% of the internal memory.